October 22, 2014 Comments Off on Georgetown rabbi accused of voyeurism, Lost church rescued from Satanists, Gender Based Violence, Britian’s Child Sex Abuse

– Georgetown rabbi accused of voyeurism is focus of other allegations
– Praise be! 85-year-old defies death threats from Satanists to spend 22 years returning 1,000-year-old derelict church to its former glory
– Lost church is rescued from the Satanists by saviour Bob Davey
– About Gender Based Violence, practice of muti-killing/ ritual murders
– In Britain, Child Sex Abuse Defies Easy Stereotypes

Georgetown rabbi accused of voyeurism is focus of other allegations
By Michelle Boorstein and Pamela Constable October 20

The case of a Georgetown rabbi accused of secretly videotaping women in the ritual bath expanded significantly Monday when a national rabbinical board said it had known since at least 2012 of complaints by women converts of inappropriate behavior.

The news triggered an outpouring by converts and advocates for women in Modern Orthodoxy who said the case reflected deeply embedded problems with sexism….

But on Monday, the Rabbinical Council of America — the country’s main group for Modern Orthodox rabbis — said it had received reports going back at least two years that women working with Freundel toward becoming Jewish felt coerced into performing clerical work for him and donating money to a tribunal he led. There was also an allegation that he inappropriately acted as a co-signer on a checking account with one woman….

More female converts began speaking out Monday, including those who converted with Freundel and said he abused the power he had over them as the sole arbiter of their conversions….

Sugarman said Freundel made “constant” comments praising her appearance, asked about her dating life and encouraged her “not to dress so modestly,” she said.

Praise be! 85-year-old defies death threats from Satanists to spend 22 years returning 1,000-year-old derelict church to its former glory

Bob Davey began work on the Norfolk tower when he retired 22 years ago
1000-year-old church last used in 1930s before it was hit by a German bomb
When he first entered he was horrified to find satanic and pagan altar
The Christian guarded church from cult members who once drove car at him
During restoration he discovered dazzling religious murals hidden by plaster

By Mario Ledwith for Daily Mail 20 October 2014

It has been struck by a German bomb, torn apart by American GIs and left in squalor by a pagan cult.

So when the ruins of an ancient church were discovered in thick woodland by Bob Davey, he could have been forgiven for thinking its fate had already been sealed. Instead, the determined church warden used his retirement to embark on a 22-year crusade to return the dilapidated building to its former glory – despite receiving a death threat from the cult….

Lost church is rescued from the Satanists by saviour Bob Davey
TWO decades ago, this 1,000-year-old building was a roofless, overgrown ruin whose existence was almost forgotten.
By: John Geoghegan
Published: Mon, October 20, 2014

Now, it’s a flourishing church thanks to one remarkable man. Bob Davey, 85, has forked out thousands of pounds of his own cash and even fought off Satanic worshippers in his bid to restore the ninth century Anglo-Saxon church in Swaffham, Norfolk.

In doing so, he uncovered rare and valuable historical wall paintings that he says have international status. Bob is now a warden at St Mary’s Church, which welcomes visitors from across the world and has even received Prince Charles and Princess Margaret.

The building was discovered by Bob’s late wife Gloria one morning in June 1992 while she was on a ramble with friends. Hidden in woodland at the top of a small hill, stood a tower shrouded in dark ivy.

Gloria managed to force her way in, through piles of rubbish, and found a disturbing scene. Soon realising it was an old church, Gloria found it laid out as a Satanic with a pagan alter and anti-Christian symbols.

“This annoyed me intensely,” Bob recalled. “I’ve been a Christian all my life and wasn’t putting up with this on my patch. “That very afternoon, I cleared all their rubbish out and burnt what I could.”….

But he was forced to guard the building at night from black-clad Satan-worshippers who were still trying to use it. Bob claims the devil-worshippers tried to run him down with a car and on another occasion came to his house and threatened him with his life if he carried on his work.

….About Gender Based Violence
Gender based Violence remains one of the biggest barriers of gender equality in Swaziland ranking as the major human rights violation amongst women. There are escalating incidences of gender based violence in the country in general as per the Surveillance on Violence report of 2011 which revealed that 77% of females were victims of abuse and perpetrators were males, were known to the survivors (CSO, 2011). Serial rapists’ occurrences which abduct and later kill women and girls are also seen from time to time.

The practice of muti-killing/ ritual murders is also from time to time surfacing especially soon before the year of national elections. During this period, women and children disappear and are later own found dead or never recovered.

Testimonials of young women alleging that they were married under Swazi Customary Law without being told about the intended marriage and without their consent being elicited first are common. The marriageable age for girls under Swazi Law and Custom is not defined and it is believed that puberty is used to determine that a girl can be a wife.

The prevalence of this violation of rights is stemmed from a turbulent socio-economic status of women and girls in Swaziland. In the past decade of Swaziland’s political and socio-economic history a lot of disparities have made women and girls much more vulnerable to gender based violence resulting in its upsurge. Socio-economic indicators such as education (formal and informal), role or status in society and levels of income have been the key drivers of Gender Based Violence in the home space as such peace is not being ensured in the home never mind the public space…..http://www.observer.org.sz/features/67018-girls-leading-the-way.html

LONDON — First there was abuse at the hands of a popular BBC host. There were scandals at private schools and in the church and talk of a pedophile ring in Parliament. Then there was Rotherham: over a thousand teenagers sexually exploited as the authorities looked away.

Over the past two years, high-profile revelations of sexual abuse of children have painted a picture of Britain as a place where such abuse is not just endemic but systematically covered up — either because the perpetrators are of the very highest status or because the victims are of the very lowest.

There are two lessons here, scholars and officials say. The first is that sexual abuse is far more common than previously believed: Currently, 2,500 children in England have child protection plans because they are deemed to be at risk of sexual abuse. But the police now speak publicly of “tens of thousands” of victims a year.

The second lesson is that the main driver of abuse is impunity: “Abuse happens in a context of permissibility,” said Helen Beckett, an expert on the subject at the University of Bedfordshire.

Whether Britain’s lingering class system has made abuse more permissible is an open question, she said. But fixating on a particular stereotype — the white celebrity or the pedophile priest or the Pakistani taxi driver — may allow other perpetrators to go undetected.

In 2012, it emerged that Jimmy Savile, a former children’s television host and BBC staple who died in 2011, had raped scores of children as colleagues and the police turned a blind eye. Mr. Savile, who was a friend of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, used his charity work to gain access to his victims in schools and hospitals. Since then, Rolf Harris, 84, once a popular television entertainer; Max Clifford, 71, a well-known publicist; and Stuart Hall, 84, another former BBC broadcaster, have been among those convicted for offenses involving children.